So you have seen the Pebble Time, but this is LG’s new watch the Urbane. This is more like a watch a would want on my wrist.
Category Archives: Tech News
Introducing the Pebble Time – Pebbles new smartwatch
Pebble announced its new watch, and another kickstarter – see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises . Their kickstarter had a goal of $500,000 and currently its over $7.6m !!! That makes it a success before it goes on sale probably.
Highlights –
– A new watch called Pebble Time with a new timeline interface.
– Pebble Time features a new colour e-paper display and microphone for responding to notifications.
– No compromises on what you love about Pebble: up to 7 days of battery life, water resistance and customisability.
– Pebble Time is fully compatible with all 6,500+ existing Pebble apps and watchfaces.
– Three colours available exclusively on Kickstarter. Pebble Time starts shipping in May.
– Works with iOS 8 on iPhone 4s and above. Works with all Android 4.0+ phones including Samsung, HTC, Sony, LG, Google, Motorola, Xiaomi and more.
Pebble Time comes in three colours:
– Black watch case and silicone band with black PVD stainless steel bezel
– White watch case and silicone band with silver PVD stainless steel bezel
– Red watch case and silicone band with black PVD stainless steel bezel
30,000 people have bought in to the kickstarter campaign already. Buying Pebble gets you access to apps and an existing developer base.
My only view is the watch is not attractive. A watch needs to look like a watch or a rugged type of watch or futuristic, and in my mind the Pebble Time is none of these. It is a geek smart watch. To get a female point of view, I asked my wife for her view on the Pebble Time. She totally agreed with my views on its styling and would never want to wear it.
Whilst the Pebble will have tons of options it still lacks focus in my mind. It is neither an advanced fitness device or a smart looking device, it is simply something for notifications on a wrist. It is a shame the hardware did not have a heart rate monitor included, as that would have made it an excellent fitness device. Maybe some of the special straps will include this? Or maybe some of the alternative straps will adds some life to the design. The only colour I would buy is the red finish. Maybe a metal version is in the pipeline. This may look much smarter.
In the meantime, its future is in good hands due to 35,000+ backers in the Kickstarter program. So what did you think?
HTC One M9 – Everything you need to know on video
@upleaks has revealed via their YouTube channel videos on the HTC One M9, revealing absolutely everything. If you cannot see any videos below, it is likely they have been removed off YouTube.
Update – the videos have now been removed.
So are you waiting to buy one?
Honor Holly – Camera Samples
Following my post covering the camera app software, this post includes a selection of camera samples. For a budget phone the camera took some really good photos.
Honor Holly – Review – Part 2
Welcome back to the Honor Holly review part 2. Today I am going to cover the audio and camera.
The Honor Holly camera app has a number of options available including ISO controls all the way up to ISO 1,600. The burst mode captures up to 40 shots or you can amend the setting to allow up to 99 shots in a burst. The burst mode works fairly well. The separate post today covers off some of the camera shots taken on this phone.
It also features a number of other options from HDR, Face detection and timer can be set for 2 or 10 seconds.
Scene mode has options for night, sunset, party, portrait, panorama, night portrait, theatre, beach, snow, steady photo, fireworks, sports, candle light or auto. There is a number of colour filters available from whiteboard, blackboard, aqua, negative, sepia and mono.
The main interface on the left side includes modes for panorama, face beauty, live photo mode (combines a photo and video) and the standard camera shooting mode. On the top right you can toggle HDR and the flash and switch between front and rear camera.
All in all a competent set of options and in my testing a good camera too that punches above it weight at its price point.
The Honor Holly has its own music player app, similar to Honor 6 which I reviewed recently.It also includes a number of options in the graphic equaliser department as shown below.
The loudspeaker sounded a bit tinny and the sound via the headphone socket was satisfactory. However, with the help of all the EQ options you could tweak it to your liking. I tried connecting via USB Audio but the Honor Holly does not support this.
Tomorrow I will provide my final thoughts on the Honor Holly.
Sennheiser HD518 Headphone Review
Today, I am going to look at the Sennheiser HD518 headphones.
The official specifications of the Sennheiser HD518 are –
-Type – Full-Size Circumaural, ‘Around-the-ear’ Headphone
– Frequency Response – 14 – 26,000 Hz
– Acoustic Design – Open-Backed For Excellent, Natural And True-To-Life Sound Reproduction
– Impedance – 50 Ohms
– Cable length – 3 m OFC Single-Sided, Exchangeable
– Connector Plugs – 6.3 mm Plug, With 3.5 mm Adaptor
– Sound Pressure Level – 108 dB
Over the Christmas and Black Friday period in 2014, Amazon had these headphones reduced from their typical selling price of £120 to a more reasonable £49.99. These are Open Back headphones which means you can hear everything around you and everyone can hear your music too and clearly! But if you are listening in private in a quiet room these headphones are fantastic.
Comfort. When I put these headphones on I thought wow, these are so comfortable. They feel like slippers for your ears and over the last few months have become even softer around my ears. These are the most comfortable pair of headphones I have ever worn. I am able to wear these for hours and hours and being open back, their is no ear sound pressure, something you can get with a closed back design. These are even more comfortable than the Sennheiser HD600 that I owned previously.
Sound Quality. With any pair of headphones, I leave them initially connected and playing for around 100 hours to burn them in. The sound stage on these headphones is outstanding due to their open-back design. They have very crisp highs, naturally clear mids and very deep controlled bass. But it is their natural feeling of an expansive sound stage and musicality that makes these such a superb performer. Live concerts just feel like you are right there listening to the performance. Female vocals are wonderful. Personally I think these headphones are leaning towards a warmer sound.
Compatibility with smartphones. The HD518 can be used with a smartphone but will never sound their best as at 50ohms impedance they need additional amplification. Most smartphone headphone amps will simply run out of steam to power these properly.
My preference with these headphones are listening to jazz, blues and classical and any live recording. These headphones are not great for portability or listening in crowded noisy spaces but if you can get around all of that, find a private quiet space, you will not be disappointed.
Fiio RC-HD1 Cable – Review
The Fiio RC-HD1 features a special PCOCC-A high purity OCC copper wire construction,high purity wire creates excellent conductivity, four segment straight copper plated gold 2.5mm / 3.5mm connections and outstanding tension resistance. It is a replacement cable for the Sennheiser HD518, HD558 and HD598.
Specifications –
– Length: 120cm
– Sheath material: TPE
– Shielding layer: PCOCC-A
– Insulating layer: PFA
– Conductor: PCOCC-A
– Outermost diameter: 2.4mm×2 (Parallel structure)
– Plug: 2.5mm / 3.5mm
Not all cables are created equal. Whether you believe this cable is worth £30 is up to you to decide, but I have been extremely happy with it. The Sennheiser HD5xx range comes with a 3 metre cable terminated with a 6.3mm plug which does not fit any portable gear or smartphones. It does come with an adapter to convert the 6.3mm plug down to 3.5mm but then you have this huge component sticking out of your headphone socket, which also will create a lot of strain of the headphone jack.
The Fiio cable is a replacement speaker cable for the HD5xx range of headphones. For a start it is only 120cm long and terminated with a 3.5mm plug.
In addition it upgrades the quality of the sound experienced through the HD5xx headphones. In use I found my music to provide clearer treble and midrange. tighter bass and a wider sound stage. It is also a lot easier to use my HD518 headphones with a shorter cable length.
For those that haven’t heard of Fiio they make a number of budget audio components that offer huge bang for your bucks.
Honor Holly – Review – Part 1
Welcome to my review of the Honor Holly.
The Honor Holly is budget priced phone but as you will see, it comes with some midrange features. So lets have a look at the hardware. The back of the phone is white, and lifting the battery cover off reveals it is a dual sim phone with a micro SD slot too for cards up to 32gb. The battery is removable and therefore also user replaceable too.
The official specifications of the Honor Holly are –
– 5 inch IPS 720p screen
– Quad Core CPU MT6582 1.3GHz
– 16gb Storage
– 1gb ram
– Android 4.4.2 with Emotion UI
– 8MP rear & 2MP front cameras, both BSI and with F/2.0, panoramic mode, beauty mode, HDR mode, continuous shot, scene mode and video stabilizer
– Battery 2,000maH
– Dimensions – 142.2 x 72.3 x 9.4
– Removable battery
– Dual sim, plus micro sd up to 32gb
– 48 hours battery life
The Emotion UI skin provides a clean look as without the app drawer.
As you can see there are a few extra apps included in the Honor Holly to add to the experience. Also included is WPS Office by Kingsoft Office Software, Facebook and Twitter. In the pull down settings, cast screen is included automatically as is the sound profiles (4 options). The phone comes with 16gb storage of which just over 12gb is available.
Whilst the phone is 720p in resolution, this did not impact my enjoyment as the device had good viewing angles and had a high brightness level. Battery life is stated at 48 hours and in my usage I managed close to that figure. In terms of benchmarking AnTuTu scored 18,995 and Geekbench 3, 352 for Single Core and 1156 for Multi Core. I have said I don’t personally care for these types of scoring as they often don’t translate in to real life usage. I have found the Honor Holly to be snappy to use and quick opening applications.
So far it has been a positive experience.
Tomorrow I will cover off the audio and camera and in the meantime, if you have any questions, please let me know.
Tidal Hi-Fi Music Streaming service – pros and cons
Tidal Hi-Fi Music Streaming service costs £19.95 per month so it better be worth paying twice as much as other streaming services. For those not sure or haven’t heard of Tidal it streams music at 3 different bit rates. See below.
– Normal quality: 96 kbps (AAC +)
– High quality: 320 kbps (AAC)
– HiFi: Flac 1411 kbps – Lossless (16 bit/44.1 khz)
Google All Access streams at 320mp3 at its highest and Apple at 256 AAC. As you can see Tidal streams at an even higher bitrate called Flac. This digital file is higher than that of CDs. It normally is an uncompressed recording of the actual performance. Tidal also offers HQ video but this is only available via a PC and not using their mobile apps.
So I downloaded their app on to my Note 4. Signed up for free 7 day trial. You do need to give them your credit card details. And started streaming. My setup was Tidal app playing the music, in to my HiFiMeDIY Sabre Android USB DAC and then into my Cayin C5 Portable Headphone amplifier. This sounded amazing. You could plug your headphones straight into the Note 4 itself which still offers a remarkable improvement. The change in dynamics, clarity, instruments and nuances of each song was so much better. After 4 hours of streaming music I thought to myself it really cannot be that much better than that of say Google All Access music. So I selected a jazz album on Tidal played one track, switch to Google Music and played the same track. Nightmare scenario. Google Music now sounded distorted and muddy and lacking everything. The difference was stark and greater than expected.
But here’s the thing. Flac music files are huge in size. A typical album will be in gb’s not mb’s. Fortunately, Tidal offers offline mode and the option to store tracks to the micro SD card if you have one. Due to Flac’s storage requirements I never bothered using them as the extra storage required was crazy. I have a vast music collection and if it was all flac files my house would be full of hard drives. But this is why I like Tidal. As it streams the space issue is overcome.
So after 2 days in to my 7 day trial I am nearly convinced to pay the monthly payment. But not everything is rosy. The app is not the best for finding music. It’s buggy too. In my offline downloads it shows I’ve downloaded 3 albums but in the queue are 5 tracks showing still to be downloaded, which they have been already. Mid way through listening to music it sometimes just stops. Some of the offline downloaded tracks when playing them back skip in places. This might be down to the track not downloading properly with my wifi speed maybe being the cause. Whatever the reason it’s annoying. And offline mode means you still need large storage if you want to hold several albums on your device.
The other aspect of Tidal is the music catalogue is not as large as say iTunes but it is broader than I imagined. I’m listening to Imagine Dragons as I type this. One other point is Tidal only allows 3 authorised devices which should be enough.
If there is one reason why I don’t subscribe it is due to the tracks skipping mid song. Totally ruins the enjoyment of otherwise a special music streaming service.
Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge – 6 new features/photos teased by Samsung
First up here’s the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge courtesy of Samsung and T-Mobile US.
Samsung’s Norway website also likes a good tease but in turn gave more insight into the new Samsung Galaxy S6. And the video after gives even more clues away.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 